EmailDirect

Review: We contacted EmailDirect.com for their email marketing services. We discussed a program with them and they e-mailed us a service agreement. The document has the following language "Commitment:Your commitment to EmailDirect will be on a month to month basis. You will be billed for services at the end of each month. Prepayment is not required." We were planning to use their email services for the launch of our new website which was and is still under construction. We notified EmailDirect of this stipulation from the beginning. Because our website is taking longer to complete and we didn't have a release date, I informed EmailDirect.com that we would not be using their services until we completed our new website. EmailDirect.com has NEVER sent a single e-mail on our behalf. Now out of the blue today I receive an e-mail from a COLLECTION company demanding $1440.00! Im shocked! I called EmailDirect.com and asked to speak to their accounting dept. But the girl who answered REFUSED to transfer me! We intended to use them after our website was completed but after this blatant extortion attempt I cannot see working with these people.Desired Settlement: EmailDirect.com needs to READ their own documents and stop trying to strong arm potential customers. They provide no explanation for how they arrived at a $1440.00 dollar figure owed to them since we did not ever use their service. Ask them how many emails they sent on our behalf. Then ask them for the service agreement we supposedly signed. And look closely at the section titled Commitment. We want them to cease collection activities against us immediately.

Business

Response:

[redacted] signed a Service Contract & 5 page Terms of Service on 8/19/2013 with a service initiation date of 8/15/13. The Terms of Service signed and dated by [redacted] clearly state "The Rates will be billed monthly (or, in the case of Customers with prepaid accounts, debited monthly) for the Services, beginning at the end of the second month following Customer’s start date listed in Section C of the Service Agreement (8/15/13)." This means that the first month of service they contractually would be billed for was October 2013 (providing half of August and September at no charge). However, EmailDirect did not begin billing until December 2013, allowing two additional months of setup than we were contractually not obligated to provide. Between August 15th and January 1st EmailDirect called [redacted] 8 times and sent 13 emails offering assistance to get going. On 10/4/13 [redacted] told us they’d be in touch within a week to get everything going. When we spoke to [redacted] on 11/12/13 we provided options for getting email out and they said they were busy now but would let us know. That was the last time [redacted] responded to EmailDirect. We continued to reach out in December, January and February and on 3/3/14 we reached out again asking what they wanted to do with their account. We continued to try to work with them to provide an option based on their timeline but they ignored all attempts. 12 calls were made and 17 emails sent between August and March trying to offer assistance so they'd use the service or to find out what was going on/if they needed to cancel. [redacted] never provided a timeline, never stated they wouldn’t use the service until the Website was built…in fact the opposite with the last conversation we had was discussing options for sending email without the website being finished. [redacted] signed a contract they didn't have any intention of honoring, refused to respond to a service vendor who was trying to work with them and then presented a distorted version of the truth as EmailDirect could have contractually charged much sooner than we did. [redacted] never paid EmailDirect a dime for the hours of time, and custom design work, invested in to trying to get this program off the ground. After 5 months of attempting to communicate, [redacted] forced EmailDirect to obtain a Collections Agency to work with them on our behalf. EmailDirect can provide records of everything referenced here to substantiate these facts.

Consumer

Response:

I am rejecting this response because:

I find it odd that a company would provide TWO separate Terms & Conditions documents to its customers. One in plain language that says "Your commitment to EmailDirect will be on a month to month basis. You will be billed for services at the end of each month. Prepayment is not required." And right there in their own words they say BILLED FOR SERVICES. We received no bill because there were no services! Yet just reading their Revdex.com response makes your head spin with their twisted jargon.